Forum:Book pages "Appearances" section
Just me stirring up trouble again! ;p I've been reading through the Original series books and starting with The Mystery of Cabin Island (revised) I've been editing the relevant book pages as I've finished the book and it's still fresh in my mind. One of the things I've been adding to is the lists of appearances on each page. Now, according to the style guide, I should list appearances in alphabetical order, under the relevant section heading. Fine, but my natural inclination is to put Frank and Joe at the top of each list of appearances, then all the regular characters, then the rest. Meeting the style guide half-way, I've added further subsections, the first one called "Regulars" which lists Frank, Joe, their family and friends in alphabetical order, then a section called "Others" which lists the rest of the characters in alpabetical order. In one case, I've added a further section which groups the employees of a particular firm in another section, since there are so many of them. I could also list the members of any criminal gang mentioned in a separate section. What I want to know is, do others feel this is too much of a deviation from the style or a useful way of breaking up long lists to make them more readable. On a related note, most of the lists I've seen have every single appearance as a link to a potential page. However, I've noticed that there are very few recurring villians in Hardy Boys books and only a few characters who recur regularly and would therefore merit a page of their own. Therefore, starting from The Great Airport Mystery (revised), I've stopped putting names of one-shot characters in square brackets and instead, put a short note after their name which explains a bit about them and their relevance to the case. Again, basically I'd like to know how people feel about this. Is it useful? (Oops! Forgot to sign this earlier) Paul Hassett 18:40, 7 August 2008 (UTC) ---- Having "regulars" and "others" subsection in the "characters" section might be a good idea, but personally I don't mind how it is currently either. (SkyWarp does similar on his site http://www.hardyboyscasefiles.com/index.php?nav=network&sub=cf&book=001 but seems to be switching over to one big "character" list http://www.hardyboyscasefiles.com/index.php?nav=atac&sub=mi&book=001)But I don't think a list of gang members or employees of a firm is a good idea at all, I think it would just get to complicated, rather make a separate article for the organization in question, with a list of members/employees. Since this is a Hardy Boys site, I feel all character, organizations, and locations major or minor marit an article, and most of the time even if a character appeared only in one book, their is enough info about them in that one book to at least make a large stub article. So please make links to all subjects in the "appearances" list. WHLfan (talk to me!) 18:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC) ---- Okay, sounds reasonable. Paul Hassett 22:29, 7 August 2008 (UTC) :I've added an article for Stanwide Mining Equipment Company from The Great Airport Mystery and re-ordered the list on the book's page to fit in with the above style. Once I started writing the article I couldn't stop, so it's a bit bigger than I'd expected it to be! :Paul Hassett 12:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC) ---- Great job, Paul! We need more article like that! WHLfan (talk to me!) 18:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)